John Harrison Hansbrough and the Cleburne Estate

A long-time acquaintance posted recently on the 180th birthday of John Harrison Hansbrough, an African American born June 15 near Stevensburg, Virginia in 1860, in the shadow of the looming Civil War.
“At the age of 34 he made the brave but mystifying decision to migrate to Australia in 1894 where he was employed as a labourer by one of my forebears, the Hon. Richard Cleburne MLC at Mt Direction, overlooking the Derwent River at Risdon near Hobart in Tasmania.

Richard Cleburne (1799-1864), merchant, was born in Ireland. He arrived in Hobart Town about 1821 and soon had a variety of business interests. He built up a large trade, buying produce and selling all kinds of equipment at his store in Liverpool Street. Gossips credited him with smuggling when he later bought Uplands, 1560 acres (631 ha) near Mount Direction, with an extensive frontage to the Derwent. Here he cultivated 300 acres (121 ha) and built a fine stone house, with attractive gardens and an orchard. He was responsible for opening the first direct trade between Melbourne and Hobart in the Blossom, built to his order. He was a director of the Colonial Bank in 1840-43 and an active promoter of the Derwent and Tamar Insurance Co. and later of the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Co. As his business enlarged he moved his warehouse to a capacious new building in Murray Street in 1840. Always an enthusiastic supporter of local manufactures, he began a soap, salt and candle industry on the Old Wharf and enlarged it in 1849. In 1854 he bought the Ferry House at Risdon, and in 1860 took over the government’s irregular ferry; the service in his new Risdon Queen was formally opened with a lavish levee at his expense.

Cleburne was prominent in public affairs and a Freemasons. In 1851 he was elected for Huon to the Legislative Council, where he fought zealously against the continued transportation of convicts. He retained his seat until 1864 giving active support to the Real Property Act and to the regulation of state aid to churches although failing health kept him from the last two sessions. He died at Risdon on 29 October 1864, aged 64.

Cleburne had married twice and was survived by two sons and eight daughters. His first wife was Margaret Magill (1802-1837), and his second was the widow, Harriet Beauvais, second daughter of Edward Miller.

“After Cleburne’s death in 1864, John Hansbrough looked after two of his daughters, Eliza and Louisa who lived until 1928. After 30 years serving the Cleburne family, their deaths left him homeless until admitted to the Newtown Infirmary in 1945. Alone and far from home, he passed away there, intestate, aged 84 years with no known surviving relatives.
Whatever circumstances brought him to Australia, and the challenges he faced in his life, I hope he was treated kindly and was more respected for his African American background than he would have been in the country of his birth.”

My maternal grandmother Annie (Hall/Weston) Newman lived at Cleburne House with her husband Harry Newman, where Harry was employed as a boiler attendant. They lived there from the mid-1930s until her death in 1947. My mum had fond memories of the place. She told me of an elderly African American gentleman who lived there. She thought that he had been a slave in the US.

The Eastern Shore: A History of Clarence by Alison Alexander contains
a story that my mother had told me. John Hansbrough would take his bicycle on the Risdon punt each week to go shopping in Hobart. He was a regular sight hurtling down the main road to Elizabeth Street on his fixed wheeler with no brakes as people scattered out of his way.

My acquaintance has given life to the identity of this exotic character from my mother’s youth. The wonders of serendipity and ancestry research.

My interest piqued, I searched for John Hansbrough on Trove, and aside from his obituary, I found two significant letters he had written to the editor of the Mercury on the mattery of abolishing slavery and the treatment of black people as sub-human. He was evidently an educated and eloquent fellow. What he had to say has a striking resonance with current global protests for action on systemic racism.

In the Mercury on May 1, 1896, John Hanbrough wrote:
BISMARCK ON SLAVERY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MERCURY
We need no better evidence of the ability of the coloured man than that shown by the rapid program of the coloured people of the United States since their liberation in 1866. I belong to the United States, and therefore speak from personal knowledge. They are to be found in all walks of life, and every business and profession that go to make up a civilised and highly cultivated people.
They are fast giving the lie to the slanderer, and in spite of all such defamers as Prince Bismarck, will ere long stand erect before God and man and demand justice, equal rights, and recognition among the great nations of the earth.
Thanking you for so much space in your valuable paper.
Yours, etc..
JOHN H. HANSBROUGH.

Trove

Again, in the Mercury 28 Feb 1903 he wrote:
RACE HATREDS.
To the Editor of “The Mercury.”
Sir, – You would greatly oblige me if, in your valuable paper, you could find space for the following. The Rt. Hon. Sir Edmund Barton, P.C., the Federal Premier, in his speech at the Town-hall on the evening of the 13th inst., showed himself a very selfish and unscrupulous man.
When he began to speak on the subject of a White Australia and kanaka labour, he seemed to think he had reached a pinnacle on which he must flap his wings and crow. He takes great glory unto himself for having established the White Australia policy, and is quoted as having said, ”he thanked Providence that the work rested on him of establishing a White Australia.”
In speaking of the kanaka he stoops to a very low degree indeed, that of appealing to the prejudice of his audience. He tries to generate a hatred against the kanaka by making mean references to him.
When referring to the revenue tariff and kanaka labour he asks his audience if they would have a revenue tariff or a piebald one? And when asked what about the climate for white men? he replied, “there are plenty of white men willing and able to work, but not side by side with a kanaka.”
Now, what difference it could make to any man out in the open air on a sugar plantation whether he worked in the field with a kanaka or a whiteman is what I cannot see. The only thing that he need be concerned about is whether or not the kanaka worked for less wages than he did.
Sir Edmund Barton would fill the breasts of the ignorant with a vain, haughty pride without the slightest foundation to it. All for his own selfish ends.
The meanness and absurdity of the remark is all the more plain if we look at scores of the fruit pickers and hop pickers of our own beautiful little island, where the standard of living among the poor is better than in either New South Wales or Queensland. If there are any good reasons for getting rid of the kanaka there are, certainly, none for trying to prejudice the people against him. He did not come here of his own accord, and since he has been hero has done nothing meaner than hard work.
If Sir Edmund Barton was a statesman worthy of his position, or even a brave man with a large heart beneath his vest, though his capacities as a statesman might be small, he would be willing to stand or fall by the merits and demerits of his actions, and not go about the country in the apparent desperation of a drowning man, trying to create hatred and prejudice in the breasts of the ignorant against a poor innocent and defenceless people, who stand dumb before all who may come to accuse them.
Few of us realise what a serious thing it is to work up a prejudice against a people who are not able to defend themselves, no matter how groundless that prejudice may be.
All the persecutions suffered by the early Christians at the hands of the Romans were largely the outcome of a fermented prejudice; and the same is largely true of the nearly 2,000 years of persecution suffered by the Jews.
Now that those persecutions have ceased, people wonder why they were ever begun.
I would advise the Premier to read Mat. 25 from the 35th verse to the end, and he will find that the love and sympathy of Jesus for the poor and downtrodden are so great that our acts of kindness or unkindness to them are directly felt by Jesus Himself.
-Yours,
etc.,
JOHN H. HANSBROUGH.

Trove